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Notification to the Parties No. 2016/032

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Notification to the Parties No. 2016/032 CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF WILD FAUNA AND FLORA NOTIFICATION TO THE PARTIES No. 2016/032 Geneva, 23 March 2016 CONCERNING: Trade in Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) 1. This Notification to the Parties was submitted by Canada on behalf of the parties to the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears. 2. The Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was concluded in Oslo, Norway, on 15 November 1973. The Polar Bear Range States comprise Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. The Range States have held meetings every two years beginning in 2007. 3. The Range States met in December 2013 in Moscow, Russian Federation, and reaffirmed their commitment to work together to ensure the survival of the species through the signing of the Declaration of the Responsible Ministers of the Polar Bear Range States1. This Declaration contains two paragraphs related to trade in polar bears as follows: … Understanding the importance of the issues we face and their possible impacts on future generations, we, the representatives of polar bear range states declare our commitment to continue to work actively to implement the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears in order to: … – Explore mechanisms to counter the threat of poaching and illegal trade in polar bears and polar bear parts, including enhanced cooperation among law enforcement agencies at the national, regional and global levels; – Strengthen international cooperation to improve the clarity of legal trade data through the adoption of more effective reporting and monitoring practices and help address illegal trade through the adoption of procedures to better identify legally traded specimens and to verify the authenticity of trade documents. 4. The Polar Bear Trade Working Group, co-Chaired by Canada and the United States of America, was formed to implement these two aspects of the Declaration. Its work resulted in six recommendations relating to facilitating international cooperation for better enforcement, reporting and data for polar bears. The recommendations were endorsed by the Parties to the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears at their meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland, in September 2015. 5. The purpose of this Notification is to make public the recommendations of the Polar Bear Trade Working Group of the Polar Bear range States so that all Parties can be made aware of these procedures as 1 https://www.ec.gc.ca/nature/default.asp?lang=En&n=33E9D90B-1 International Environment House • Chemin des Anémones • CH-1219 Châtelaine, Geneva • Switzerland Tel: +41 (22) 917 81 39/40 • Fax: +41 (22) 797 34 17 • Email: [email protected] • Web: http://www.cites.org Notification No. 2016/032 page 2 agreed to by polar bear range States. This information will be provided to the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) as well. The Notification contains: a) Recommendations on the terms for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Parties to use in their CITES annual reports; b) The appropriate method to estimate the number of polar bears in international trade; and c) Administrative procedures to verify CITES export permits. 6. On behalf of the parties to the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, Canada commissioned a report, entitled Review and Analysis of Canadian Trade in Polar Bears from 2005–2014, to facilitate the understanding of the supply chain and consumer demand dynamics for polar bears. This report informed the parties to the Agreement about these recommendations, and can be obtained from the Polar Bear Range States website at: http://naalakkersuisut.gl/en/Naalakkersuisut/Departments/Fiskeri- Fangst-og-Landbrug/Isbjorn/Trade-Working-Group-Report. a) Terms for CITES Parties to use in CITES Annual Reports i) To improve the clarity of legal trade data, consistency is needed regarding the terms and units used by exporters and importers in the CITES annual reports which are provided to and compiled by UNEP-WCMC. Consistent use of terms will help avoid confusion and double-counting of polar bears in international trade. The range States recommend that exporters and importers use the terms that are used by the range States. ii) While it is not possible to have a single set of terms for all polar bear imports, exports, and re- exports due to differing requirements of national legislation, the range States recommend that CITES Parties use terms and units in their CITES annual reports for the polar bear parts in trade as they are used by each polar bear range State. This information is provided to the CITES Parties as an Annex to this Notification. An explanation of terms is available in Guidelines for the preparation and submission of CITES annual reports (February 2011, http://www.cites.org/eng/notif/2011/E019A.pdf). iii) Further, it is recommended that the most precise term available be used to describe the specimen, and specifically: – Whenever possible, not use imprecise terms, for example: ‘plate’ and ‘derivatives’; – When the specimens traded for scientific purposes are hair or teeth, use the terms ‘hair’ and ‘teeth’ instead of the term ‘scientific specimen’ in order to be more precise; – Only use the term ‘claw’ when the claw is not attached to the hide or body; and – Use the term ‘bone’ for uncarved bones and the term ‘carving’ for carved bones. iv) Finally, it is recommended that the specimen code (as per the terminology used in the Guidelines for the preparation and submission of CITES annual reports) be included in the box provided on the CITES permit or certificate to describe the specimen (Box 5). b) Method to estimate the number of Polar bears in international trade i) The range States adopt and recommend the use of the following method when estimating the number of polar bears in international trade. A shared method is critical for understanding and avoiding confusion on the number of polar bears in trade. The range States further recommend that when estimating the number of polar bears in international trade using the CITES trade data, it is recognized that polar bear parts in international trade are not necessarily from polar bears Notification No. 2016/032 page 3 harvested in the same year they are exported. The parts in international trade may be from harvests in many different hunting seasons which can date back several decades. ii) The ultimate goal in trade data analysis is to inform an evaluation of conservation impact. Information most useful for evaluating conservation impact is the number of polar bears in international trade. The CITES Trade Database offers two report types: a Gross/Net Trade Tabulations report and a Comparative Tabulations report. It is imperative that the Comparative Tabulations Report type is used for the analysis as the gross data sums all trade transactions including re-exports and cases where the same transaction is simply reported differently (e.g., 100 skins reported by the exporter and the same 100 skins reported as trophies by the importer would be summed as 200). The recommended approach to arrive at the number of bears in trade is outlined below and uses the trade terms “bodies”, “skins” and “trophies”. In order to provide the best estimate of the number of polar bears in trade, the approach only includes those specimens that indicate harvested whole polar bears. Specimens from non-lethal collection (e.g., hair) are not included as they do not represent a harvested bear and do not have a conservation impact. The rationale for choosing bodies, skins and trophies takes into account: – larger specimens are more representative of a harvested polar bear (a whole skin for example vs. a skin piece); and – specimens infrequently traded have little impact especially when not the main product that is also in trade. iii) Skulls are sometimes traded separately from a skin or a body. Typically, however, the body is also in trade along with the skull and already accounts for one bear. The number of skulls in international trade in 2012–2013 was approximately 9% of the trade compared to 88% of the trade represented by skins, bodies, and trophies (CITES export data from the Canadian Permit Database for 2012–2013 (accessed September 29, 2014). The report Review and Analysis of Canadian Trade in Polar Bears 2005–2014 also shows that the inclusion of skulls is not important for estimating the number of polar bears in international trade. In the case of hunting trophies, skulls accompany hides, and in other cases, tag numbers for exported skulls could be matched to tag numbers for exported hides. Thus, it is not recommended to take skulls into account to avoid double counting. Finally, trade of live animals is not taken into account because the trade is not frequent, and when it occurs, it usually involves specimens bred in captivity (e.g., zoo) and not polar bears taken from the wild. iv) Steps for data analysis to estimate the number of bears in trade from each range State (getting the report): 1. Open the CITES Trade Database at: http://trade.cites.org/ 2. Select a year range 3. Select “Canada”, “Denmark”, “Greenland”, “Norway”, “Russian Federation” and “United States of America” for exporting countries 4. Select “All countries” for importing countries 5. Select “All sources” 6. Select “All purposes” 7. Select “bodies”, “skins” and “trophies” for trade terms 8. Search by taxon: Ursus maritimus 9. Select output type “csv” 10. Select report type “Comparative Tabulations” 11. Get the report v) Steps for data analysis to estimate the number of bears in trade from each range State (in the report): 1. Select a year 2. Sort the data by origin 3.
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